Ooops, look what I built...

Been laid out with some poxy cold for the last ten days or so. No riding. No running. A brain that feels slightly removed from reality and the start of a nasty hacking cough. Bored. Bored. Bored.

So I did what anyone in the same situation would do and converted my bastardised singlespeed hardtail into an überbastardised, singlespeed, 69er, rigid. I've ridden a 29er. For all of about five minutes. And it sort of rolled over things in a deceptively nonchalant manner, but honestly, I'm quite happy with my Ragley and the Pace and as a journalist myself, I have healthy distrust of journos and new things.

Anything new or different tends to gets a 50%+ novelty weighting because, well, journos get bored too. They like new things and shiny things. Prime example, the Whyte 46, different but not in an entirely good way. And once the lingering canon smoke of novelty had cleared, most people realised that.

Anyway, I was kind of intrigued by the idea of stuck  a 29er front on the faithful 'vento, so after a bit of thought and research, I splashed out on the 26" version of the On One carbon fork. The Soma Double Cross temporarily donated its front wheel, stuck a 2.25 Ardent on it and bolted it all back together.

And? I have no idea. It looks okay, quite neat even. But I haven't ridden it yet. Weighs an okay 21.something lbs. From the wrong angle it looks like a modern-day Penny Farthing, but then it would. Mostly though you don't even notice. So there you go. .

Frame's a custom Setavento ti copy of a first generation Marin Rocky Ridge, singlespeeded courtesy of an external eccentric bottom bracket from Canada, erm, Future Components seems to ring a bell. More worryingly, the original 26" front complete with Bontrager XR4 is now on the cross bike. Perhaps fortunately it doesn't clear the fork, but just imagine it with a 2.1 Nobby Nic fitted. Or maybe not...

Summer?

 

Me! Me! Me!

Might have written this... slow, weak, rider coming through on your, erm, left, or er... or not.

Mayhem The Weird Way...

Did Mayhem at the weekend as a sort of last minute substitute for a mixed team - ultimately there were, erm, three of us, when there should have been five. That and a load of brooding storm clouds and incoming isobars meant that I badged up the single-speeded Rockyvento as a Maverick, slapped a Morvelo sticker on the fork and an Alpkit one on the chainstay and slapped a Ragley Ti one on the seat-tube for max confusion and packed a selection of mud tyres.

It was kind of odd being non competitive from the start - normally it takes me a couple of laps - but  had a really good weekend. For starters it never really rained properly. I saw loads of nice people I've not seen for far too long and met some new ones too. The Horror Cat got an outing with glowing red eyes and all. And surprisingly my singlespeed legs worked despite advanced mono-cog rustiness.

Ended up doing two double-lap stints then a triple on Sunday morning. I could have done a quadruple, but it felt like enough and I wanted to be able to get back into 24/12 training mode this week. So, seven laps at a briskish pace for me, lots of climbing, 70-odd miles of singlespeeding, sore hands from that final descent taken flat out every lap cos it was smoother that way, or maybe it was just over faster...

Lots of people thought the singlespeed thing was mad, but actually it worked pretty well there - lots of climbing, but most of it at an eminently singlespeedy gradient and the lack of weight, Rocky's around 22.5lb with no particular effort to keep things light and the lack of complexity help. There's a certain smug satisfaction from listening to folk desperately screwing up gear changes at the bottom of every climb while you just creak serenely on your way.

The Horror Cat did the steering, I turned the pedals, pulled on the brakes occasionally and came along for the ride.

Overall it was kind of reassuring that I could do that with very little singlespeed background this year and still feel pretty strong. Next stop, 24-hour solo at 24/12 but with gears.

Somewhere at the back of my head though, is an insidious little voice that keeps whispering about maybe soloing Mayhem next year on the singlespeed...

Floaty, fluffy, rest-day mode now.

I will kick your arse today so I can kick it again tomorrow and the day after that...

I'm sure there was a time when I could ride a singlespeed quite competently, but the newly built up one-cog Setavento seems to have its own bastardised motto: 'I will kick your arse today so I can kick it again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that too...'

The enemy in close-up vision - 32/17, almost a magic ratio.

Which is nice. For something relatively simple, it's been relentlessly complicated. Sticking the external eccentric BB on was fiddly and means slacking and re-tightening 12 set screws and the whole HT2 crank gubbins into the bargain.

And then there was the chainline, 10mm or so out, cue lots of interesting mechanical coffee grinder noises. Sorted after a thoughtful session with a steel rule and some spacer rehasing.

In profile with no relevant details even vaguely visible.

And then there was the creaking... the seatpost, silenced I think, with lashings of grease and some assertive clamp tightening. And the set up. The vento's basically a ti copy of a Rocky Ridge, which means a higher than average front end, fine with gears, not so clever when you're trying to muscle up some rubbly, steep local Peak horror with just the one. Ended up with a flipped stem and a set of On One Fleegles.

And at a dapper angle after leg collapse.

Seems to have done the trick though, weight forward and down, front end feels completely different - really planted even with the wide bars and no longer doing the pannicky, wandering thing on steep ups. I even quite like the Fleegle, sort of a no-rise riser with a fair bit of sweep, though need to mess around with the angles and the attitude in more ways than one.

Now if my legs would just get with the program... Normally takes them a couple of weeks, toes crossed.

Magic people, Voodoo people...

Winter has gently killed my bikes. Attrition. They all have something mildly wrong with them - worn bottom brackets, slack pedals with plates that no longer hold onto fresh cleats no matter how much you wind in the tension screw, forks that need servicing, broken spokes, wafer-thin brake pads, grips that don't....

... with one exception. Mr Wanga, with his lithe steel tubes, stainless Surly cogs and chainrings is in the rudest of singlespeed health. Admittedly that's because he's had minimal use this winter, but hey, I'm slightly scared of the evil little bastard and his surrounding invisible zone of malevolent mechanical mayhem. Lifetime ticklist includes a washing machine, two cars, numerous expensive bike components, though rarely his own and, apparently, a classic Anglepoise lamp while sojourning darn sarf.

But needs must, so out he came for yesterday's night ride. And do you know what, it was ace. I'd forgotten - again - how much I enjoy the absence of chain clatter and shifts, the focus on lines and traction and that funny thing of out-climbing geared bikes not because you want to, but because you have to. The bike made me do it, your honour.

A sweet, gritty evening made sweeter by knowing that I'm off somewhere warm and dry and friendly in just a couple of days time. Like staying with friends because it is staying with friends, ones who I've not seen for far too long.

Mr Wanga however, is staying in his bike cave.

Is it breakfast time yet?

Fear of singlespeeding...

Saturday morning. Grabbed the Wanga by its ridiculously wide bars, put some air in its tyres and dragged it out kicking and squeaking into a slidey, slippy, grit-slurried November Peak morning. The Pace has eaten its drive bits - chain, jockey wheels, cassette all expensive trash - the 'vento has a flat front and, well, it was the obvious thing to do.

Anyway, cliche or not, it was like meeting up with a an old friend, a good but slightly eccentric one. After a first five minutes of fumbling for shifters and awkward spinnning out, a gradual dawning recollection of why I liked the thing in the first place, followed by a glowing, grinning, warm fug of affection.

I don't do quasi-religious, singlespeed-niche, self-definition - not that there's anything wrong with that, you could be into, erm, unicycling, for example, and that would be considerably worse - but for me anyway, the nice bit of singlespeeding is the way it changes familiar trails into something else altogether. The climb you habitually breeze up on your geared full-susser is suddenly a tricky amalgam of line choice mixed with sudden demands for spurts of step-clearing power.

On long Peak climbs, half the battle is knowing where to be slow. Being able to back off and still turn the pedals, so when you do hit the steep technical step that really does need that turbo-charged moment of sheer power to clean, you have't left it lying around somewhere lower down on the climb.

And that's the bit I'm missing. That top 10 per-cent of the rev range, the ability to push through just one more pedal stroke when your legs are screaming. The point where you suddenly become just lungs and legs and nothing more or less, and the bike improbably, impossibly pops over that step and leaves you bent over the bars, a mess of hyperventilating lungs and lactic-filled legs.

Need to ride it more.